Postst by "thetara" — Page 17

How Michael Czyzniejewski can cure the book blues

For whatever reason, I’ve been feeling a little blue this week about writing and whatnot. Which is odd, since it’s the week that my book is officially released out into the wild. But, I suppose, wherever you are in your writing career, there are always new challenges, doubts, and worries, and you never know when they’re going to sneak up on you.

Which is why I was so pleased to see Michael Czyzniejewski ‘s write-up of “The Monitor,” one of the stories in Bystanders, on his awesome Story366 blog this morning. In case you’ve missed it so far, Mike is writing about a different short story every day for the whole year. Ambitious! Awesome! Check it out.

His review of “The Monitor” is great, and much appreciated. But more than that, it got me thinking about the way that writing friendships work, and the way that encounters and generosity and a little bit of luck open up opportunities and connections and friendships.

Way back when in grad school, I would read Mid-American Review. Mike was the fiction editor then, and a damn fine one with a stellar reputation. The publication was on my bucket list. I sent him anything I vaguely thought might be worthy, and got a lot of rejections back. Some with handwritten notes, others not, but trust me, I remember those little scribbles. They were a sign of an actual person behind this mysterious process.

When I finally got a story accepted by him, it was like I’d made it. I remember dragging my coworker to the bar in the middle of the afternoon for a sneaky celebratory drink.

Later, that story was included in my first collection. Later, I met Mike in person at AWP. I became the editor of SmokeLong Quarterly, and actually got to publish some of his stories. Then he read for us at an off-site event in D.C. (The picture with this post is us, circa 2010! Look how happy we look!) We chatted occasionally on social media.

A few years ago, Mike interviewed one of our authors for the quarterly issue, and the interview was so great that I jokingly told him he should just be our interview person. Not only did he say yes, but so did his amazingpants wife Karen Craigo. And so goes the weird, crazy, wonderful, sometimes frustrating but always interesting circle of writing life: the faceless editor I used to spam with my work in grad school now works with me on a publication.

This is not a particularly unusual or special story. I’m sure most every writer has a similar experience to share, probably dozens of them. But I needed to reflect on it this week in particular, when it seems like the writing world is too big. That there are too many of us trying to do the same thing, that it’s hard to write and even harder to get that writing in other people’s hands.

All of that is true, but it’s precisely those reasons why its worth it as well. Yep, there’s a lot of us. But that’s all the more to “get” what we’re trying to do and sympathize. It’s all the more to meet and learn from and have beers with. It’s all the more who spend what little free time they have to write a review or send you a quick note or slog through submission queues to publish your work and give you a voice.

So thank you, Mike and all of my other writing pals out there–too many, thankfully for me, to name–for your friendship and for all the opportunities you’ve provided to me throughout the years. And thank you for being amazing writers and editors and support groups. I feel quite lucky to have you all and to be able to call you friends.

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And speaking of awesome writing people, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to Chris Irvin, Paul Tremblay, and Erin Fitzgerald for making our panel at the Newburyport Literary Festival this past weekend look good. We chatted about violence in literature (and the occasional movie), and I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Paul’s reading later that afternoon–which was given to a SRO crowd. If you haven’t checked out A Head Full of Ghosts yet, you need to. Just don’t read it late at night.

 

Flash Fiction Prompts and Readings–Handout from Conversations and Connections DC 2016

I had a lovely time presenting at this year’s DC Conversations and Connections conference with Tyrese Coleman, editor of District Lit, and Abigail Beckel, publisher at Rose Metal Press. Our panel, The Long from the Short: Turning Flash Fiction Pieces into a Series or Novel, was so well-attended that we ran out of handouts! As promised, I’m posting our tips, prompts, and further reading list here.

Also, here are some relevant links:

District Lit

Rose Metal Press

SmokeLong Quarterly

Also, thank you to the folks who asked about Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons. I should’ve mentioned the book is currently out of print, although it is being re-released in early 2017 by Santa Fe Writers Project. You can still find it on Kindle right now if you’d like to check it out.

Cheers!

Tips for Writing Flash:

Start at the flashpoint—by definition Flash begins at the moment of conflict, when all the action is nearly complete.

Focus on the powerful image(s)—Find one or more powerful images to focus your story on.

Hit them where it hurts—Go for an ending that offers an emotional impact. Play against expectations with a sense of narrative mystery or devastating twist, a poignant implication or declarative last sentence that leaves the reader breathless, and going back for more. Not an “aha” moment or a punchline. An ending more nuanced than that.

Strive for the concrete.  Eliminate the word “thing” or “something,” for example.  Replace that word with an actual concept, image, noun, etc, that explicitly participates in the image you are portraying.

Write the whole story, then eliminate useless words.

Stay away from punchline endings or “joke” flash fiction.

 

Some Flash Prompts:

Fictionalizing a true moment: Start a flash piece with a specific memory of your own grounded in the five senses (touch, smell, feel, seeing, hearing) – For example: the feel of an aunt scratching your scalp or the smell of your child’s bedroom. This memory should be specific enough to work into a moment. Find the story from there.

Use pictures, paintings, or music to inspire a flashpoint.

Tell the story backward or play with the idea of memory and nonlinear time in a story.

Think of writing a flash piece as a scene when working on something longer, say a longer short story or as a novel chapter.  Flash is inherently raw with emotion. When wanting to draft a pivotal moment, take the time to draft a flash piece – with a beginning, middle and end — to represent that moment between your characters.  Break down the action to its bare essentials for more impact.

 

For Further Reading:

Narratives-in-Flash

Matt Bell, Cataclysm Baby

Chris Bower, Margaret Patton Chapman, Tiff Holland, Meg Pokrass, and Aaron Teel, My Very End of the Universe: Five Novellas-in-Flash and a Study of the Form

Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha

Aaron Burch, How to Predict the Weather

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

Lily Hoang, Changing

Tina May Hall, All the Day’s Sad Stories

Lance Olsen, Anxious Pleasures

Lance Olsen, Architectures of Possibility

Kelcey Parker, Liliane’s Balcony

Mary Robison, Why Did I Ever

Matthew Salesses, I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping

Jean Toomer, Cane

Lex Williford, Superman on the Roof (forthcoming Aug. 2016)

 

Flash Guides

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction edited by Tara L. Masih

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction edited by Dinty W. Moore

A Pocket Guide to Flash Fiction edited by Randall Brown

 

Journals That Feature Flash

Smokelong Quarterly

Brevity

matchbook

Monkeybicycle

Nanofiction

Necessary Fiction

District Lit

The Collagist

The Short Form

The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts

Wigleaf

Whiskey Paper

Links to flash stories/examples of flash forms:

How to Sit by Tyrese Coleman: pankmagazine.com/piece/sit/

If the Woodcutter Were a Junkie by Tyrese Coleman: queenmobs.com/2015/11/if-the-woodcutter-were-a-junkie/

Liner Notes for the Debut Album From the Band We Never Formed by Amorak Huey: brevitymag.com/nonfiction/liner-notes/

The Heiress by Tara Laskowski: matterpress.com/journal/2015/03/02/the-heiress/

The Cage in the Woods by Joe Lucido: wigleaf.com/201509cage.htm

Narrative Flash:

Cravat by Roseanne Scott: www.smokelong.com/cravat/

Conjugation by Jen Michalski: www.smokelong.com/conjugation/

Dialogue-only flash:

Bartleby Snopes contest (2000 words or less): http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/bartleby-snopes-issue-14.pdf

Flash with long time span:

Transplanting by Lisa Smithies: http://www.smokelong.com/transplanting/

Present-tense flash with amazing drive:

Dive by Dawn West: http://www.smokelong.com/dive/

Good microfiction:

Marriage by Anna Lea Jancewicz : http://www.matchbooklitmag.com/jancewicz.html

How to Write Killer Flash Fiction

Crime flash fiction is hard to write! But when it’s good, it’s oh so good. I talk about this in a blog post “How to Write Killer Flash Fiction” over at Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Here’s a sample:

“Stay away from surprise or punch-line endings. Your story’s only purpose should not be a surprise reveal at the end. That leaves the reader feeling cheated.”

Check it out in its entirety here–and thanks much to editor Janet Hutchings for asking me to participate. Also remember to check out the May 2016 All Nations issue of EQMM for my story “States of Matter.”

First-place win in KYSO Flash

So pleased to learn that my flash “Ladies Night” won first place in the KYSO Flash Triple-F Writing Challenge. The challenge was to write a 500-word or less story or poem that uses the words flicker, fierce, and fool. I usually get paralyzed by word writing prompts, but somehow this one worked. Thanks to Clare MacQueen and the editors at KYSO Flash for all their kind words about the piece. You can find my story and the other winners, honorable mentions, and finalists here. 

 

*Photo courtesy of unsplash (Sergio Alves Santos)

 

Flash Fiction Story Accepted by Ellery Queen

Exciting news: My short story “States of Matter” will be appearing in the May 2016 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. What is particularly exciting about this is that it is the All Nations issue, with crime fiction stories from writers all over the globe. My piece will be the American representative in that issue, which is pretty stinking cool.

The story, about a gravedigger and a woman who needs revenge, comes in at just over 450 words, so it’s a tiny little sucker. Look for it on newsstands in a month or two! And thanks much to Janet Hutchings, editor of EQMM, for believing in it.

*Post image used courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

Ways I’ve Learned to Survive Winter

I’ve always used one word to describe the winter season: Ugh. I’d much rather be hot than cold. I cannot stand being cold; it makes me miserable and unproductive. I can handle the first part of winter because of all the holiday festivities, but once New Years Day comes and goes, it’s pretty much bleakness through to mid-April for me.

However, the past few years I’ve tried (note: tried) to have a better attitude about the whole thing. If only because there’s no real way to avoid it, save moving south somewhere. And with a better attitude comes a new way of looking at our coldest season. There’s something kind of nice about that first snow day, that equalizing feeling that comes with everything shutting down for the day, of everyone taking a break, slowing down. There’s something nice about warm sweaters and blankets, a cozy fire crackling. Hot chocolate.

So with that spirit, I offer up a few things that have gotten me a little more pleasantly through what is still my least favorite part of the year:

  1. A good coat. Never underestimate the power of a good down coat. What used to be me freezing on the train platform in what I thought was a good warm coat is now me laughing at the old self as I wrap myself in puffy feathers, warm gloves and a scarf. It makes the walk a little more bearable. (A little more.)
  2. Grapefruit. It is best in the winter, and it is a delightful treat. It’s also the kind of fruit that you eat ceremonially. It takes some time. It takes a special spoon. It takes some digging and some work to get it out. And it’s delicious with a sprinkle of sugar on top.
  3. A SAD light. It’s so terrible to arrive at work in the dark and leave work in the dark. I purchased one of those seasonal affective disorder lights a few years ago and it’s made all the difference for me. I use it for 30 minutes a day and I don’t burst into tears quite as often for no real reason.
  4. New Years cards. We haven’t sent Christmas cards in a while, but I always feel guilty about it. I like writing notes to folks, but I just don’t have the time in the mad rush before the holidays. So I’ve thought about doing New Years cards in January, once everything has calmed down and it’s too damn cold to go out anywhere anyway. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try!
  5. Orion. No doubt about it, the winter sky at night is the best sky. The first glimpse of our sky hunter grounds me, and on a clear night in the winter you can see so much beauty. It’s worth bundling up and heading down to a dark spot for.
  6. Cashmere. It’s soft, unlike scratchy wool. It’s light, unlike heavy wool. It’s warm, really warm, unlike all the rest of the sweaters in my closet. It’s expensive, sure, but it’s SO WORTH IT.
  7. Key lime pie. I have a fantasy of taking a tropical vacation during the winter. Of escaping to Key West for a week at the end of January or in the middle of the worst month of all (February, in case you were wondering) and sitting on the beach eating key lime pie and flipping a big middle finger to the arctic winds and polar vortexes. It hasn’t happened yet, but a girl can dream, right?

How to Survive Facebook during the Presidential Election Season

I’m already in hives thinking about all the nasty posts and comments I’ll inadvertently see in the months to come as we kick into full-out gear with the U.S. presidential election. I’m not averse to disagreeing, but I don’t feel like much of the conversation I’ve seen and heard gets anywhere near a conversation. It usually ends up more in name calling and shut-downs. Ugh.

My Facebook life during election season is usually to swear to myself that I won’t post anything political at all, then get really angry at some point and break that vow, then worry incessantly that I’m pissing off people I otherwise like, then feel better when people agree with me, then see a post or comment by someone else on some other friend’s post that I really itch to comment on and disagree but don’t because I don’t want to start anything nasty, then swear not to put myself through that again by posting anything political. (REPEAT).

I recently came across this document by Patty Maher that she wrote for her family and friends as guidelines and reminders for posting political stuff on Facebook. I thought she had some good points in here, so I asked her if I could share it here. Happily, she agreed.

How to Survive Facebook during the Presidential Election Season—with All Your Loved Ones in Tow

Debates have their place in society. Our daily Facebook feed is not one of them. If we are forced to defend our point of view every single day between now and the 2016 election, we will grow weary—or worse. We may end up in outright fights.

Although some people seem to see Facebook posts as invitations to debate, I encourage a different point of view. I think of Facebook posts like yard signs. If your neighbor posted a yard sign in support of a candidate or issue you disliked, you probably wouldn’t go knock on her door to insist she defend herself. You probably wouldn’t interrupt her dinner to insist that she listen to your 7-point solution to her errored thinking. You might post a sign in your own yard supporting an opponent of her favorite candidate. You might even make your sign a bigger and better one! Awesome for you. That’s the American way. Live and let live.

Until now, there have been only a few options for politically thoughtful persons on Facebook.

  • Keep it inside. Don’t EVER post about who you support or what you believe in. Instead, take photos of your dinner. If possible, find a nice filter to make the colors pop. Talk about eating it. It’s not controversial. Or post pictures of cats and babies instead.
  • Post about your love for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump and keep an eye on your friend count. You’re taking the chance of being unfriended in this political climate but, oh well. You just gotta do what you gotta do.
  • Only post about issues that are super important to you. And be ready for the people who hate your opinion on these issues to swoop in like vultures and pick apart your thoughts and feelings.
  • Whatever! Post whatever you want whenever you want and comment wherever you want whenever you want and become hated by at least 45 percent of the people with whom you had previously been “friends.”

It doesn’t have to be this way!

In celebration of National Conflict Resolution Day recently, I developed some guidelines to get us through the next presidential election with all of our limbs and loved ones intact.

The Live-And-Let-Live Approach to Facebook Political Discourse:

Step 1: Register to Vote. I’ve been amazed to find that some of the most opinionated people don’t vote. If you’re going to make political suggestions, criticisms and proclamations, don’t be lazy about voting.

Step 2: Post about issues and candidates you support. Don’t make negative posts about the candidates and issues you don’t support unless they are truly funny and warm spirited. Would Jesus or Ghandi chuckle, too? Then you’re probably ok.

Step 3: If you disagree, let it roll. This is the most important step. When your uncle or your kid’s daycare provider expresses a view that you are 100-percent opposed to, remember, “It’s ok to disagree.” You can still care about a person and completely disagree with his or her political views. Let it roll through your newsfeed and don’t engage. If you must express a counterpoint view, make a post in your own newsfeed instead of commenting on the post you find offensive. Do you really want to philosophically browbeat all of your friends and family members? Nah. You’re an American. You can handle this.

Step 4: Ask political evangelists if you can agree to disagree. When people insist on trying to sway me over to their point of view via comments on my political post, I now make a comment such as this: “Frank, it’s clear that you and I have opposing viewpoints, and it’s not because either one of us is uneducated about this subject. Can we just agree to disagree? I don’t want to discuss this with you anymore.”

Step 5: Pull the shade. If you have asked for the debate to end and someone continues to try to change your opinion by expressing lengthy comments on your post, consider pulling the shade on them. First, let the person know. Respond to their comment with a comment such as this, “Frank, I’m sorry you’re not able to stop arguing about this issue despite my request that the debate end. I encourage you to continue to express your own political views by making posts that support your candidate and point of view. However, as a way of pulling the shade on your debate, I am changing our Facebook relationship status from “friend” to “acquaintance.” This way you will no longer see the posts you find so disturbing. My privacy settings allow friends but not acquaintances, to see my posts. You can still send private messages if you want to get in touch with me regarding community events. I wish you all the best with your political work and I hope to see you at the next neighborhood potluck.” Once a reasonable amount of time has passed (if the person is online, half an hour should do it) reassign the friend status. If your Facebook privacy settings indicate that only friends but not acquaintances can see your posts, your former “friend” and new “acquaintance” will no longer see the post over which he felt so inclined to wage debate.

6. If you exercise the option to “pull the shade,” I recommend you follow up with a short, considerate snail-mail greeting.This should not be a letter explaining yourself. No need for that, and it will only make matters worse. What this situation calls for is just a little something to let the person know you still care about them—despite the political differences. This month a holiday card would be perfect. Go with whatever’s seasonably appropriate.

Good luck! Keep free expression and kindness alive. It’s possible to have an opinion without feeling the need to clobber others with it. I think it’s important to share your opinions if they are important to you—whether they are about pandas or pies or politics. If moderate-minded people don’t feel safe to share, the bullies will dominate Facebook. Don’t let them.

Patty Maher is an old-school journalist who bemoans the loss of paper newspapers. Most recently she was a k-12 education reporter for the Ann Arbor News. She also has covered police, city hall and local government beats for Gannet Newspapers. Today she writes occasional columns and essays, mostly for her own sanity (or to school haters about social media communication). She lives in Ypsilanti, Mi, with her boyfriend and often contemplates getting a Roomba and some pets to feature on a You Tube channel. 

Book festivals and sand castles and other stuff going around

The Washington Independent Review of Books column I wrote last month was about the types of people you’ll find at book festivals. You know, anything from the creepy fans to the writer whose work you fall in love with. I now have one to add to my list, thanks to my own poor judgment: the person who thinks it’s ok to bring their toddler to a reading and watches in horror while he proceeds to do snow angels on the floor while a poet is expressing grief in a series of sonnets on stage. Oops.

Fall for the Book always puts me in a weird mood. I find myself excited about all these writers in one place, but it also inevitably makes me feel inadequate about my own writing and writing career and where things are going. I seem to have to recharge myself after a book festival or writing conference. I wonder if this happens to a lot of writers. We’re always comparing ourselves to other people even if the successes that happen to other people really have no bearing on what we are doing and how our work is received.

Writer Matthew Burnside recently posted a status on Facebook that I found comforting: “Sometimes you feel like you’re not being nearly productive enough as a writer and then remember this shit isn’t a race it’s a tedious shaping of sandcastles on the beach and all that matters is the integrity of the mold before the tide comes crashing in.” Truth!

Some other stuff going on right now this minute:

For a sneak peek at the novel I’m working on, you can check out the short section of it that Wigleaf published recently. Fingers crossed I can pull this off.

I also read a lovely set of novellas by Michael Ruhlman, In Short Measures, and reviewed it at Washington Independent Review of Books.

Love this super creepy story I read recently at matchbook.

And Art Taylor won an Anthony Award this past weekend at the Boucheron mystery convention. (And I found Sherlock.)

Word.

‘Stupid’ and police officers and I don’t know what

Yesterday my son Dashiell was playing with his Matchbox cars quietly on the floor while I watched the news. He held up two cars and said, “Momma, guess what this car just said to the police car?”

“What?”

“He called him ‘stupid.'” He said, very solemnly, then shook his head slowly. “That’s not nice.”

“That’s not nice,” I agreed. “No one should call someone else stupid.”

It then, of course, became a game, with him holding up another car every few seconds and asking me the same question. “Stupid,” the other car always called the police car. Eventually, the “bad” cars weren’t allowed to play anymore and had to go to “jail” or back in their cases until they could behave better.

An innocent game. Yet that morning I’d been watching the dash cam video that had been released of Sandra Bland’s arrest. The video that showed her giving, at best, a mild attitude (but really, in my mind, just questioning the police officer’s requests and orders). She didn’t call him “stupid,” but she didn’t agree with him. She questioned his authority. She was told she was being “bad” and ended up in jail–and later, ended up dead.

My son’s innocent little game suddenly took on these dark tones. Now, granted, it’s good, I suppose, that he’s learning that he shouldn’t call other kids names, that people need to be nice to each other. But the fact that he was using a police car in this game made me pause–are we all taught that disrespecting police officers (or authority in general) is bad, is cause for some very severe punishment? And then I saw this article by Tiffanie Drayton discussing this very thing–that you shouldn’t have to be “respectful” in order for police officers to do their job and be professional. Drayton writes, “Others, however, are rushing to the defense of police, saying that Bland should have simply followed the trooper’s orders and not given him ‘an attitude.’ This kind of justification all but directly says that police brutality is a matter of unruly, indecent people getting their just deserts.”

Our culture is one that celebrates shows like Cops, which glorifies the police taking down criminals, with the message that these folks are “stupid,” or “lazy” or “losers.” It sends the message that officers are just making sure no one gets out of line–and if you do, if you even dare to question whether or not you have the right to keep smoking in your own car, you can be yanked away to jail.

I know that law enforcement has a tough job. I can’t even begin to imagine the things they have to deal with every day, the decisions they have to make in seconds that could mean life or death, the heartache and sadness and bleakness they deal with as part of a regular morning. I recognize they have to be on guard all the time and project their confidence and authority in order to stay safe. But it’s a scary world where these decisions are deemed unquestionable, where authority and law enforcement goes above and outside of the law. Yes, we should respect police officers. But respect goes two ways.

In my three-year-old’s world, the police are allowed to send people to jail for name-calling. But should the rest of the world really be allowed to function on a three-year-old’s emotional capacity and logic? Because, honestly, sometimes police officers ARE stupid (and, other times, even worse)–and we should be allowed to say so.

In which I am reminded that there are actual people behind the submissions

So we get a lot of submissions at SmokeLong Quarterly. On average, about 1200 per quarter. And we publish about 20 of those. So that means we send out a lot of rejection letters. And, sadly, many of those are form rejections.

I won’t go into the reasons behind that–you guys know the drill of ‘other paying daytime jobs,’ ‘toddlers,’ ‘my own writing and life,’ blah blah blah. Though I really would like to send personal feedback more often, it just isn’t possible.

So today, I was trolling around on Twitter and saw that someone had tweeted at someone else to ask if she’d heard anything from SmokeLong Quarterly. Being nosy, I looked at the exchange, and realized it was a writing professor tweeting to his student about the places she’d sent a story of hers.

Cool, right? So I checked out her name and looked up her story in our archives and saw that we’d sent her a form rejection. Bummer. I re-read the story and looked at the other editor’s comments, and decided to be a cyber-stalker and tweeted back at both of them with some personal feedback.

 


Nothing earth-shattering there in my Twitter feedback, but I wanted her to know that we actually read it, that she wasn’t just sending out into the void. I remember that feeling–I still have it sometimes–and it sucks. I think it’s easy to forget that there are actual humans behind the long list of stories in our queue, and that they are desperate for any kind of feedback, any kind of comment that shows that there are actual human beings behind the form rejections and submission systems. It was nice to be reminded of that today. It was also nice to see kick-ass writing professors tweeting at their students and encouraging them to keep on writing and submitting.

 

I hope she does send to us again, and I hope one day we publish one of her stories. Submitting stories, books, poems, whatever, can be a long and frustrating process–but with the right people around us, with the right mentors and editors and friendly champions, it makes the whole miserable system a little bit brighter.